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Designing the New IK RPG
Designing the New IK RPG
This summer, Privateer Press will unveil the long-awaited IK RPG and once again allow players to explore the rich, war-torn world of the Iron Kingdoms through the lens of a role-playing game. Recently, I sat down with development manager David “DC” Carl and staff writer Simon Berman who have been diligently working away on the new RPG. I asked them a number of questions about how the new game plays and what players can expect from the mechanics and setting. I think you’ll find their answers quite intriguing, and they should shed some light on a few of the burning questions many players have about the new game. Bear in mind the IK RPG is still in development, and the information presented here could change as the designers take the game through its various stages of refinement.
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NQ: What can you tell us about the basic rules system of the IK RPG? DC: The rules will be a proprietary system developed to reflect the setting of the Iron Kingdoms. Matt Wilson has been heavily involved in the project, more so than on any other project since I joined Privateer Press. He and Jason Soles have been really digging into the way that characters come together and the way that setting elements are reflected in the game mechanics. We’ve already got a great system for reflecting battles in the Iron Kingdoms, so WARMACHINE and HORDES players will find many elements of the combat system familiar.
NQ: How closely does it relate to WARMACHINE and HORDES? What kind of dice will I be rolling? DC: The core of combat resolution will parallel WARMACHINE and HORDES very closely. It’s a 2d6 system plus the relevant stat adjusted by modifiers like aiming and concealment. The biggest difference is that we’re zooming in on the individual character level, so there are additional stats that don’t exist on WARMACHINE and HORDES models as well as more options in a given combat turn than you’ll find on the average solo. If you’re a Privateer Press war gamer, though, you’ll have no trouble jumping right in to the new IK RPG.
NQ: There were many racial options in the original RPG that allowed players to play everything from humans to ogrun. Will players still have this array of options in the new game? SB: Absolutely! All the races available to players in the original Iron Kingdoms Character Guide will be available in the new game: humans, gobbers, trollbloods, Rhulfolk, Iosans, and Nyss. The core book will cover all of these races to some degree, but we’ll expand upon their homelands and cultures in future releases. Initially, we’ll be focusing on the Iron Kingdoms proper, those nations formed at the signing of the Corvis Treaties at the end of the Orgoth Rebellion. Since those nations are ruled and largely populated by humankind, that perspective will inform the material of the early books. At first, we’ll be examining what it’s like to live in the Iron Kingdoms, primarily as humankind does, but also considering the lives of urban trollbloods, bogrin, and others. As we expand upon the setting in future books, we’ll have the opportunity to explore the people (and beasts!) of the wilderness, as well as those nations and empires beyond the borders of the Iron Kingdoms. DC: Yeah, like Simon said, folks will be able to play any of the previous player races right off the bat, and our initial focus will be on the sorts of characters and adventures most iconic of the actual “Iron Kingdoms” of western Immoren. The part that I’m really excited about is how much we plan to expand that moving forward. Before we’re done, folks will be able to play just about every race they can name from WARMACHINE and HORDES. Even though this is the Iron Kingdoms role-playing game, there’s a huge, rich setting to explore limited only by the imagination of game masters and players. I’m really looking forward to hearing about someone’s swamp campaign, for example, with a party of gatormen, bog trogs, and croaks. Whatever story you want to experience in the setting of WARMACHINE and HORDES, we want to make that possible.
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NQ: Okay, so I’ve got my d6s, I’ve chosen my race, now how do I go about becoming a totally badass warcaster? What defines the other parts of my character? Do I choose a class, a path, a destiny, or something else altogether? DC: Beyond a character’s race, the first big choice is deciding which archetype to choose for the character. There are just a few different archetypes, but they have a huge impact on the direction of a character’s development, both from a game play standpoint and the overall vibe of the character story-wise. In addition to the character’s archetype, he’ll have a career. Some of these have prerequisite archetypes, but many do not. The Mercenary career, for example, is open to any archetype. Putting these elements together in different ways yields vastly different characters, even within the same career. A Forceful Dwarf Mercenary makes a great front-line fighter while a Skilled Gobber Mercenary is more at home shooting from cover. SB: I think the addition of archetypes and careers is particularly exciting because it opens up a new avenue for us to explore the iconic characters of the Iron Kingdoms without being constrained by things like traditional RPG classes. One of my favorite parts of our setting is that our characters feel like real people with broad sets of skills. In the real world, nobody can tell a molecular physicist that just because he chose to be a scientist he can’t take Kung Fu classes and also be a martial artist, so there’s nothing stopping our wizards from picking up a sword if that’s what they want to do! That scientist is never going to be an expert a fighter like Bruce Lee, and that wizard is never going to be a swordsman on par with Vinter Raelthorne, but both of them may encounter problems better solved with their secondary abilities.
NQ: One of the coolest things about the Iron Kingdoms is the nature and flavor of magic. You’ve got everything from the pseudo-scientific magic of mechanika to the more traditional arcane arts and priestly magic. How will this dizzying array of magic choices be handled in the RPG? Will each type of magic be presented differently? DC: Looking at WARMACHINE and HORDES gives a good top-level view of the variety of magic. Warcasters and warlocks have their own mechanics for magic, focus, and fury. Such characters will operate very similarly in the role-playing game. The remaining spellcasting models in the war games have one or more “Magic Ability” spells. These sorts of characters will be explored more thoroughly in the roleplaying game with additional detail and options within their own detailed spell system that diverges a little from how these characters are represented in WARMACHINE and HORDES. In the current revision, such magic users can push the limits of their own magic-casting capabilities
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but with personal risk once they exceed certain limits. This gives them their own version of resource management distinct from both focus and fury.
NQ: Obviously, since this is the Iron Kingdoms RPG, its timeline will coincide with the timeline presented in WARMACHINE and HORDES. Does the setting for the RPG begin in the modern era or is it set back a bit? SB: We’ve chosen to set the game in the year 608 AR, only a short time after the events of WARMACHINE: Legends, and less than a year prior to the setting’s true present as established in the ongoing events of WARMACHINE and HORDES. We considered our timeline very carefully while choosing when to situate the present day of the new RPG. We
definitely wanted to advance the overall narrative of the world from the previous RPG, which was set vaguely after the fall of Llael. 608 AR suited our needs perfectly. This time period offers players a setting that is rife with the tensions of cease-fires, intrigue, and the possibility of stumbling across important battles, but doesn’t constrain the stories within the context of an all-out war.
NQ: What about monsters? Every RPG needs monsters and villains for heroes to battle and overcome. SB: You can be sure that the game will feature many of the favorite monsters of the Iron Kingdoms. Dregg, gatormen, warjacks, thralls, and many others will return to thwart the plans of your heroes, if not in the pages of a book then within the pages of No Quarter Magazine.
NQ: The core book for the new IK RPG will be released in the summer. Can you tell us what players should expect from that book? SB: DC and Jason Soles are finalizing our core rules, character creation, and advancement systems, Doug Seacat is working on a history of western Immoren, and I’m in the depths of writing up a giant chapter on what it’s like to live in the Iron Kingdoms. Basically, the core book will include everything players and game masters need to start adventuring in the Iron Kingdoms!
NQ: Okay, you two, what are you personally looking forward to playing in the new RPG? Ogrun bodyguard? Sinister blackclad? DC: For me, it depends a lot on the group. I’d love to con Doug Seacat
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into running a story-heavy campaign where I’d want to play some sort of spellcaster, possibly even a warcaster, depending on the characters chosen by other players in the group. I’m also looking forward to setting up a game my wife Jess will enjoy, and that means lots of bashing in the heads of evildoers. A Trollkin campaign could be a great way to pull that together while allowing me maximum freedom in story telling. I could freely shake up the urban encounters, wilderness encounters, and dungeon crawls, and I could give the protagonists plenty of enemies to bash guilt-free—from necromancers to Cephalyx to corrupt aristocrats and their militias.
SB: I’m torn. On the one hand, I’d love to run a game set among the criminal fraternities of the Korsk bratyas. There’s something really appealing to me about a campaign set in the smoggy, frozen streets of Korsk and focusing on criminal plots, brutal deeds, and the subtle machinations of the Greylords Covenant. Basically, Eastern Promises with frost magic. On the other hand, I want to play in that game! Ever since I wrote an installment of the Gavyn Kyle Files on the underbosses of the kayazy I’ve wanted to play the subject of the dossier, Maksim Ovcharenko. If I get my way, he’ll be statted up before too long …
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